


Adverbs

by driftwoodMarsh



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Love, One Shot Collection, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driftwoodMarsh/pseuds/driftwoodMarsh
Summary: "It is not any of the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. It is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe." - Daniel Handler,AdverbsA series of one-shots about arriving at love: immediately, obviously, arguably, and all the other ways it is done.Fenris / Hawke: immediately, particularly - 1, 4Cassandra / Varric: obviously - 2Carver & Hawke: arguably - 3Mahariel & Morrigan: briefly - 5
Relationships: Carver Hawke & Female Hawke, Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras, Female Mahariel & Morrigan (Dragon Age), Fenris/Female Hawke
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Immediately - Hawke / Fenris

**Author's Note:**

> Each story is prompted from the chapter titles of Daniel Handler's novel _Adverbs_. Each quote that appears is from the chapter in question.
> 
> Pairings are listed in the chapter titles. Tags will be updated as the work is, but I'll mostly just be using character/relationships, and tags that apply generally. Tagging the whole work with things that only apply to one chapter was starting to look a bit crowded, and probably doesn't help anyone find what they're looking for. Instead, I've noted chapter-specific topics in the individual summaries to reduce mess.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke is having one of those nights.
> 
> Spoilers for Inquisition.
> 
> Tags: Love At First Sight

# Immediately

Hawke/Fenris

> "This is love, a pretty thing on an ugly street, and why wouldn't you pick it up if it appeared in a cab? Finders keepers is what they say, and I wanted to be kept."

* * *

Tonight is all the usual frustration. Living in Kirkwall feels distinctly like her fingers are scrabbling on the edge of something she can't quite hold onto.

This night will join countless others on the list of reasons to get out of this forsaken city. Nights like this are the reason she has to get out, but she's got to do "nights like this" to make it possible. All that coin for the Deep Roads venture, financed by "nights like this".

First, it's the dwarf. He's antsy, clearly hiding something. She's taken some terrible jobs on Athenril's recommendation, and she doesn't trust this one at all - but coin is coin.

Of course, next, there are bandits. She's always been scrappy, and a year in Kirkwall has honed those skills. She likes to fight, likes the feeling of winning - but she could do without the cut of a jagged knife, the smack of a staff against her legs, or the way battling another mage leaves her feeling sore and slightly singed.

After all that headache, there's no bloody treasure: the twice-blasted box is empty, but for her own sour disappointment in the bottom. She's never going to get paid, and she's never going to the Deep Roads, and she's never going to get out of Kirkwall.

And now, there are slavers outside. She's not who they're looking for, but apparently _she'll do_. They're keen enough to make her night worse, since their other plans fell through. So she kills some more people, and gets some more injured, and storms through the alienage court towards the stairs to leave, but there's another slaver there - so fine, let's see what else a night like this has to spit at her.

And then, this night is like nothing, because the elf comes around the corner and it's the night Hawke falls in love.

Warm dark skin and moonlight hair, and a delicacy of movement usually reserved for dance. Careful steps downstairs with careful feet, he is all curled around with vines from there to his throat, and she feels them crawling up hers too as he slams into this slaver guy, and the laugh spills out of her.

He's moving, taut and precise, and he's lit up like a star. He punches his hand into this bastard's heart, clear through to the other side and right into hers, and it's too perfect a metaphor not to be fate, she thinks, as he wipes the blood from his beautiful fingers. Fastidious, then. She loves that about him.

He's Fenris, he says, and Carver's elbow in her ribs means everyone has noticed that she's staring.

"I suppose I must appear strange to you," says Fenris.

She sets the record straight on that, and he laughs - bewildered - and if it is because he is unused to being loved, she is going to fix that too.

Somewhere else in the scene, Aveline might be telling her she's being improper - but if you've been raucous your whole life for no reason, why not be raucous when you have a great reason? There were other causes, maybe, to have been forthright in her past - and if she justified those she can surely justify it here. One must be honest, with the people they love.

When she opened that chest, she thought it had been empty, but that's not true, because everything that happened after was inside. Walking out the door was inside, and fighting those slavers was inside, and then the treasure walked around the corner. Late, which isn't usually how treasure chests work, but she can make an exception. She opened that chest and _he_ was inside, wrapped up in ribbon, the best damn thing she'll ever find in a wretched alley - and she's scrounged through enough this year to know.

Fenris speaks like a wine-soaked fireside nap, and Fenris laughs like the next ten years of her life, and his eyes are as green as the hole in the sky she's going to fall through one day, and not even that is going to keep her from love.


	2. Obviously - Cassandra / Varric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric writes a story. Cassandra has some edits.
> 
> Tags: Tension

# Obviously

Cassandra/Varric

> "It's obvious she's a person to love and obviously I love her."

* * *

The hall was empty, save for him, alone in his regular corner. Usually at this time of night, there would have been a few others passing through, and usually he would have retired to his quarters by now. The unlikely convergence of the two oddities at once - his late-night presence, in the otherwise empty hall - was noteworthy, and required by the scene.

“Explain yourself, dwarf.” She slapped the heavy stack of papers down on the table, inches from where his face was bent over Bianca, his hands busy with an adjustment to her springs.

Varric barely glanced at the arrival of the papers, and did not look up at Cassandra at all. His eyes were down on his work again in an instant, too quickly for her to see the smile - but it was in his voice when he spoke.

"Whatever this is, Seeker, can it wait? As you can see, I'm entertaining my ladyfriend."

Cassandra loomed above him and burned, the heat of irritation further stoked by the flames of the nearby hearth, warm on her face.

"Your disturbing assignation with your weapon can wait. I insist that you discuss this with me." She pressed a finger down onto the pages.

He slid the catch back into place and gave Bianca a conciliatory pat in apology for the interruption; Cassandra deepened her sneer at the gesture, which had been exactly his aim. He leaned back in his chair, brought his hands to the back of his neck, and hummed a contemplative sound, as if genuinely considering the cause of her sudden appearance.

"Now, what could possibly have you so incensed at this hour?"

"You know exactly what, because I think it is your specific intention to incense." Her finger on the page tapped smartly against where his own carefully printed handwriting read: _A Consequence of Company, first draft, do not distribute_.

"Ahhh. So this is literary criticism!" Varric sighed in contrived realisation, a grin breaking over his face. "And here I thought you looked ready to revisit our more familiar brand of interrogation. Well, by all means, Seeker; I've been awaiting your thoughts." He gestured for her to sit across from him. She did not.

"I find the ending of your latest work unsatisfying."

"Oh?" Varric raised an eyebrow. "I thought it rather poetic. Calloway's return to Val Royeaux, his dramatic swordfight against the comte - and with the sword the raider queen gave him!" He offered his hand up with the explanation. "You didn't approve?"

"That is not what I mean; the swordplay is fantastic." As Cassandra's mind started to move, her feet did too, pacing back and forth in front of the table. Varric watched her, hiding his smile behind a faux-thoughtful hand at his chin. "And yes, Calloway's use of Alessa's sword in his duel against the comte is an exquisite metaphor; what better way to reflect how Calloway was changed by the time he spent with her! He is triumphant with her weapon, but also because he has known her!"

"Well, forgive my misunderstanding, but none of this is sounding like you didn't enjoy the ending."

Cassandra stopped pacing, rounding on him.

"But you do not wrap up the central thread of the narrative! The relationship between Calloway and Alessa is left entirely unresolved."

Varric narrowed his eyes. "You just said yourself: he is changed by his time with her. He uses her sword to defeat the comte. That's your resolution right there."

"But she just lets him go; Calloway returns to Val Royeax to defeat the comte, and Alessa's raiders continue their travels. They do not get together before he leaves, and they do not see each other again."

"Do they need to?"

Cassandra shook her head, frustration mounting. Her fingers found the manuscript on the table again, to tap insistently on it - as if she could hammer edits in as she spoke.

"When Alessa's raiders kidnap Calloway at the beginning of the novel, it is purely for ransom, and he must lay low with her only for his own safety. They despise each other. But over time, they see the truth of what they can teach each other, how they grow in each others' presence."

"You know, I wrote the book, Seeker, you don't need to tell me how it-"

"That they do not end up together feels like a betrayal of the characters!" Her interruption was loud, louder than she'd meant it. When she continued she was quieter, but still poisonous. "And as its author, it is frankly criminal."

" _She_ is a criminal," Varric insisted pointedly.

"And?"

"And he is a chevalier. A raider with a soldier? There's, you know. There would be a tension there." He gestured casual dismissal of the idea.

Cassandra groaned, exasperated and victorious. "Yes! That is exactly to what I refer: the tension!"

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Varric, please. All the scouting he accompanies her on, reading together in her camp, their conversations about their pasts."

"And that read like romance, to you?"

Cassandra had devoured the book - all those scenes of tense arguments and late nights and fireside ale - she knew flirtation when she saw it. And he _wrote_ all of that, he knew what he was doing - and then abruptly concluded it without so much as a kiss! As if any other reader wouldn't share her opinion. She narrowed her eyes down at him. He appraised her in return, that constant infuriating amusement playing at the edges of his smile.

The hall around them was lit in blue moonlight, a pool that spilled across the long floor from the high glass window, but Varric's alcove was all orange heat: the fireplace, the candles, and something in his eyes that made Cassandra's heart race. For a moment, it was like she could see the two of them from the outside - like a painting, like a play, like words on a page. She pressed on.

"Calloway spends most of the book draping himself dramatically on things in Alessa's campsite. It is an honest wonder _she_ did not notice she was in a romance novel."

"Oh, you make it sound so... languid. It's not like that."

"The word languid is used explicitly in the text. Three times, in fact."

"Okay," he conceded with a small smile and half a shrug, "then maybe it's a little like that. But come on, so there's no kissing - it's about the character growth. And, Seeker, a distinguished woman like you - I know you value a professional relationship. Would you prefer it as a romance?"

There was that warmth again, in his eyes, in the fire, in her chest. Cassandra was no longer sure if they were talking about the book.

"You gave me the manuscript because you wanted my feedback," she said carefully.

"Of course," came his cool reply. "I know you value our professional relationship."

He didn't have to echo the rest.

She stared down at him, trying to remain steely, but she could feel the colour high in her cheeks, knew he could see it. He sat up in his chair, a challenge in his amber eyes.

"Any more feedback for me, Seeker?"

Cassandra laughed before she could stop herself - all nerves - and closed the distance, slammed a hand on the table and leaned down over him. His face was placid, but she could read his intake of breath, the way his eyes dropped to her lips for a fraction of a second.

"I think," she said icily, "that for all Alessa's confidence as a criminal, she is a coward if she can not tell Calloway how she feels. And I'm not sure if that is a failure of her character, of her author, or both."

Varric swallowed, and the wicked grin melted comfortably back onto his face. He brought an arm up to rest on the table, hand close to hers.

"Calloway is an honourable man, an accomplished soldier. Alessa couldn't make the first move on someone like that. He's untouchable."

Cassandra slid her fingers across the table to meet his, and reached her other hand down to his chest.

"Then they have both been fools.”

The cool moonlight, the spill of heat from the fireplace, the noteworthy vacancy of the hall. The setting was exactly right, every detail how she'd have wanted it written.

Her, leaned over him - one hand entwined in his on the table, the other fisted in the open collar of his shirt, faces so close that she could feel his words breathe hot across her mouth.

“Here I thought I'd written the more realistic ending," he murmured.

“That is not,” she hissed, “how it ends.”

And it wasn’t.


	3. Arguably - Carver & Hawke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver gets left behind.
> 
> Spoilers for DA2: Legacy. Background Fenris / Hawke.
> 
> Tags: Sibling Rivalry

# Arguably

Carver & Hawke

> "Why behave this way?"

* * *

Bethany dies and leaves them all behind, but him most of all. Now Carver's just the leftover half of something that doesn't exist anymore.

His older sister - his only sister, now - starts introducing herself as Hawke. Just Hawke. It’s his name too, but she just steals it out from under him, like it's the last biscuit, or the best seat at the dinner table, or any of the other things you take from your little brother when you're taller and stronger and Father's favourite child.

He's taller and stronger than her now, but she's still taking his stuff.

He's not sure what hurts more: to have the back half of his name split from him, or that she discards the first half of hers - the name their parents gave her, the name he knows her by, the name he would yell across the dinner table or the marsh or the schoolyard. She drops the familial and takes the family, and now they each just have one name. She's Hawke. And he's just Carver, period, the end.

Half of something.

His sister's big head and her loud mouth and her quick hands are serving her well in this city, and he's just along for the ride. Not that he doesn't appreciate having work, not that he'd rather be starving, not that he'd rather be alone. But she moves through Kirkwall like she's always moved through life: like the fire she can bring to her hands is in her blood, under her feet, and he's never going to catch up to her. She's the leader of their little group before he knows it - there's a little group before he knows it.

Aveline sticks around, and the dwarf he doesn't trust. An ex-slave, a pirate, two more apostates. It doesn't make sense for these people to be together in this bar, but they're here for each other now - here for his sister. She's the hand they all reached out for and caught, the thing that's pulling them forward into some stupid new mishap, the thing holding court in this raucous pub while they all laugh and drink and play cards.

Carver is bad at cards, and he's tired of spending his whole life glaring at her across dinner tables.

This is love, in this bar, and it isn’t for him. She puts broken pieces together and Carver doesn’t fit. He's not broken - just half, snapped off in the middle, an odd angle, a corner that doesn’t meet the curve.

When she goes to the Deep Roads, she goes without him. She takes the elf, the dwarf, and the mage: those she loves the best. He's furious, until he isn't - until being alone draws into sharp relief how little he has going on when she's not around.

He misses her, and hopes she's okay. He reads his father's letters that she gave to him before she left, and he thinks about how quiet it is at home when people leave.

He joins the templars, because if he can't do anything for her, he's going to do something for himself, and for people like her: headstrong messy people with fire in their hands and in their blood. Carver's the one Hawke child walking around on the surface of the earth right now and his father loved a templar once. Maybe his father would have loved this for him, too. Maybe he can make the Circle better for someone than it was for his father.

He doesn't visit her at the mansion when she moves in - it isn't for him. But he takes their mother to lunch sometimes, and he doesn't have to ask how his sister's doing to get the stories; he's grateful that his mother knows he wants to hear them, and doesn't make him ask.

She goes to the Deep Roads without him, again. She hears their father’s voice without him - at the end of the world, with the elf and the dwarf and the mage, those she loves the best. Father loved her best. But he loved Carver different - loved him strong. So she can keep what she found there - those words are for her, that magic is for her; Carver does not need them. He has the sword that his father put in his hand, the name his father put in his hand, and he will reach out and take his own legacy.

When their mother dies, he still doesn't visit the mansion. Can't weep in a home that wasn't his. Quieter now, when people leave. He tells the elf to go, since he's the one she loves the best.

Carver's big sister has taken so much from him, and everything she's lost along the way is his loss too. Father, Lothering, Bethany, Mother. It is terrible to have so much in common.

When everything goes completely to shit, it's mages vs. templars, of course. It's Carver vs. Hawke. They stand in the courtyard on opposite sides, violence in between, and he's done doing what she says; he's forging his own path. He's taller and stronger than her now. She's older, but he's grown.

Grown enough to sand the corner down, maybe. Grown enough to know that it's not the end of the world for him to forge a path that runs a little closer to hers, if it's his choice. Grown enough into what he was left with to know: in the nature of breaking something in half, the thing that remains becomes the new whole.

His sister reaches out a hand for him, and he catches it, and lets her pull him forward into one more stupid mishap.

He’s gonna fight with her all the way.


	4. Particularly - Hawke / Fenris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The details were exactly the problem.
> 
> Tags: Pining, Reconciliation

# Particularly

Hawke/Fenris

> "This is love and its trouble. [...] You take it to live on and you worry there's never enough."

* * *

Forgive me, he had said. Hawke had certainly been confused, but there was nothing to forgive. She cared for Fenris; if space was what he wanted, he’d have it.

But after that night, he stopped showing up at all - not for drinks, not for books, not for work - and the empty space he had left at Varric’s table hurt Hawke far worse than the one he left in her bed.

Her mind kept tripping on that space, like a loose stone in her path. She’d think of something to say to him, and then have to remember that he wasn’t around - was, in fact, avoiding her. Every little memory was a reminder, an obstacle, and stubbing her foot on them again and again was beginning to bruise.

She missed the way he’d sling an unexpected barb at her and laugh at the look on her face. The deft way he shuffled and dealt cards - long marked fingers rifling elegantly across the deck. The practiced masquerade of passivity with which he’d deliver the winning hand; stone cold until the reveal, and then the prideful smile he was keeping off his lips would always arrive in his eyes, creasing the corners just so. The way he’d relax near the end of a drunken night, and mumble quietly along to the chorus of whatever boisterous song gripped the tavern, eyes half closed, fingers drumming sleepily on the table.

Hawke tried not to miss the way that tired smile had felt against her neck, or the way those fingers had laced so neatly with hers.

Of course, those were the details that most interested Isabela.

The lascivious inquiries were chased off the table pretty quickly by Hawke’s casual disregard for them - what was he like, and what _did_ he like, and exactly how far down did, yes yes, all the usual. After she’d grown bored of Hawke’s dismissal in that department, Isabela’s focus shifted in a more practical direction.

“You,” she said one night, wheeling a loose bracelet around her arm with a finger from her other hand, “need a distraction.”

"Well, I certainly can't argue with that." Hawke tipped her chair back on two legs, irresponsibly far, and rolled the bottom of her cider glass in a circle on the table. The last amber inch of the drink swirled around and caught the candlelight, and she absently considered flagging down the waitress for a refill. Maybe wine, this time - really lean into her maudlin inclinations.

Isabela dropped her arms to the table in a clatter of bangles, and leaned across toward her.

“Then why won’t you let me help!”

Hawke let her chair tumble back forward and raised a flirtatious eyebrow. “You? Why, you interested?”

This was met with a disdainful noise, and Hawke hid her smile behind the last sip of cider as her friend spoke. “No, my dear, not after seeing how you let it complicate your established acquaintances. I rather like you, and I refuse to be mooned after.”

Hawke puffed up, affronted, and cracked half a grin over the rim of the glass. “Come now. I’ve never mooned over anyone. Baseless slander.”

Isabela looked at her pointedly and pressed on.

“To return to the matter at hand,” she implored, gesturing a sweeping arm at the crowded tavern, “that is, the many proverbial fish in Kirkwall’s faceless proverbial sea. One you might reel in, work out your nonsense with, and then throw back to swim away.”

“And what if I’m feeling rather selective?”

"Look," Isabela laughed derisively, and raised her hands in concession. "I've seen the man. You know I get it." She inclined her head towards the room. "But he's not here, is he? And you are, and you just admitted you need a little attention. You could do worse than some of the talent in here tonight."

Hawke mused on this as she and Isabela spent the next stretch of time huddling together and taking inventory of the tavern. A few cute serving girls. One especially elegant courtesan. Her pick of rugged, windswept sailors. Isabela was no dilettante at this, and had good taste. And on another, pre-Fenris night, Hawke would have had no problem sidling up to one of these fine people and buying them the least maudlin glass of wine the Hanged Man had available.

As it was, though, her current preoccupation had her feeling fixated. He'd slipped away downstairs as if through the floorboards, as if he'd ghosted clear through the timbers of the house and out of her life. But she knew Fenris, and he was not a fickle man; it seemed improbable he had no intention of talking to her again, not after all they'd been through. She intended to keep that door open, frustrated as it made her - as long as there might be a chance.

If he needed space, she'd give it. If he needed time, she'd give it. If he didn't want to be _with her_ , that was fine. But she hoped he'd at least return to the fold sometime soon, and in the meantime, she'd earned at least a little self-indulgent sulking.

It did cheer her up a bit, to sit with a friend and admire beautiful people across the tavern. However, after a while of ogling, and another cider, it was clear Isabela was gravitating towards making the talk actionable; she'd not stopped making eyes at the elegant courtesan, and if Hawke wasn't going to have any fun tonight, that wasn't going to stop Isabela from having some.

"You can still change your mind, you know," she cajoled as she stood from the table. "He's just one man."

"Well, he's one I rather like."

Isabella scoffed. "Details."

Yes, it was the details, Hawke supposed. That was exactly the problem. It was the aimless gesticulation of hands, belying a lifetime of repressed expression so recently loosened. It was skimming her hand through soft white hair and pressing her lips to perpendicular lines on dark skin. It was the heel turn pivot of a clever feint, the critical flash of a blade too big for sense, taking a life to save hers. The specifics made all the difference; nobody else in this bar was interesting to her because they were not, specifically, Fenris.

“What can I say?" Hawke gave Isabela a dry smile. "I am a woman of discerning taste.”

“Now you’re just being difficult.”

She shrugged. "Be that as it may, I'm just going to wait a little longer."

“Well, I can’t wait another second.” Isabela's eyes were fixed on the courtesan across the room, who was making inclinations towards the stairs. "Good luck with your whole situation."

"Good luck with yours. Don't stay up too late, we have a job tomorrow." But Isabela had already glided away, halfway to her destination by the time Hawke rose to leave her own seat, and noticed she'd been left with the bill.

Well, she probably deserved that, at least.

The walk home soothed Hawke a bit; it was good to be alone with her thoughts on a warm night, swimming in the low light of the empty streets and her own quiet contemplation. She really did owe Isabela a fruit basket or something for all the besotted sighing she'd been foisting on her lately. At the very least, if she _was_ late for the trip to the coast tomorrow, Hawke decided she'd let it slide with minimal ribbing. She was halfway through a mental checklist of potions she'd need to pack for the job, and halfway through the Hightown market, when her reverie was broken by a startled voice behind her.

“Hawke.”

She wheeled around, and there, a precious gift from the spirits of city planning and good timing, was Fenris, who had just rounded a side-street corner a few yards behind her. He was standing stock-still in the mouth of the alley, dressed in street clothes and cradling a brown paper package under one arm, staring at her.

It was _good_ to see him - elation crashed through her, swift and rich - even with him looking like that, eyes all wide with the shock of seeing her for the first time in weeks. She was sure her face must look the same, anyway; her heart had certainly jumped into her mouth, and it pushed a nervous laugh out on the way up. A surprised grin fell onto his face for only a moment, before he seemed to push it aside, creasing his lips into a tight crooked frown that matched the trepidation in his eyes.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she offered. Flames, teasing probably shouldn’t be her first reflex. It _was_ a reflex, though - flooded along by habit, and by the blood she could hear thrumming in her ears.

He faltered a moment, eyes cast down at the ground, and his bearing was too familiar for her not to wonder if he was considering turning on his heel and walking away. _I need some air_ , perhaps he'd say, and she'd understand that, because her own air was gone. But he drew in a slow breath, shoulders tight, and crossed the lane to stand beside her, a guilty frown slinking onto his face.

 _Oh, Fenris_. His visible discomfort made her terribly sad, and sad made her sort of nervous, and nervous made her talk. So she blurted out “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” which was stupid, and a little mean, but true as anything. She really had missed just _looking at him_ , lean and dark and tense.

Fenris huffed a laugh, chagrined, the way she had known he would. The stop-short bruises of tripping over his absence dissolved instantly, replaced with the more familiar ache of being near this man: full bodied, like smooth liquor - like she’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.

“I apologise for my extended absence,” he said, gesturing vaguely with one hand as if trying to wave away the past two weeks. “I was not quite sure quite how to reapproach you. That is to say -“

“Oh, no, it’s, yeah. I get it.” Hawke simmered in a batch of her own shame. “Me too.”

They were both quiet for an excruciating moment.

“Are you returning home from the Hanged Man?” he asked politely, waving a hand back at the direction of her ingress.

“Yes,” she declared too loudly, completely failing to echo his casual tone. “And you, serah?” _Andraste’s ass, be normal_.

“I was taking the air, and it occurred to me I had not eaten. That western breadmaker was still open.”

The wrapped parcel he held had gone unnoticed until now; he lifted it in explanation, worrying an edge of the plain paper wrapping between two fingers. Hawke cocked her head to one side and raised an expectant eyebrow.

“And what’s on the menu?”

“Bread.”

“Ahhh,” she sighed wistfully, “A singular choice. Very daring.”

He snorted, shook his head, eyes down. “Indeed,” he said sourly - and there it was, something thrilled through her, he was trying not to smile. “It looked appealing. Made with figs, I think.”

“Oh, that does sound rather lovely.”

“Indeed,” he said again, and met her eyes, expression placid - but she knew that face from cards, knew it for the practiced thing it was. Hawke could see the small and plaintive question in his slightly narrowed eyes. She wished desperately that she had the answer.

There was another long, uncomfortable beat, and he started to shift slightly away from her, as if leaning towards the inevitable farewell that should probably conclude an accidental meeting with your erstwhile lover. _Well, see you around!_

“Do you want to come round to mine?” she said instead.

Fenris stared at her in silence, which was a kindness, as it gave her time to catch her mind up with what had just come out of her mouth.

“I just mean,” she continued, face suddenly burning under his steady gaze, his eyes locked on hers, hands frozen on the parcel, “Haven’t seen you in a bit, we could catch up. You could bring your nice-looking bread. Got a couple books I’d meant to show you, so maybe we -“

“Yes,” and the interruption was also a kindness, and even more a mercy for its meaning, as he rasped out rather hurriedly, “Yes, I would like that.”

“Great,” she breathed, unwilling to examine how easy that had been, as if the opportunity might dart away under any scrutiny at all.

They turned together - as they so often had - down the street that led to her estate, and as she fell into pace beside him she also found the comfortable steps in her mind and her manner. The observation she knew he’d appreciate, the joke he wouldn’t find funny, the joke he would, the carefully worded question that would challenge him into an argument. Their familiar dance accepted feet that knew the steps, as they traced the streets well-worn by travelers, and arrived at her door.

The bread did have figs in it, and these lovely tender tree nuts, the earthy flavour of which bit pleasantly at the sweetness of the fruit. It was dense and soft, easy to pull apart in pieces with their hands, chairs pulled close together at one side of the library table. They leaned companionably over the bread and a book, and Fenris only protested a little when she turned pages with slightly sticky fingers.

If it wasn't her imagination (and she hoped it wasn't) he seemed somehow unburdened as the night grew long - as though something heavy had been taken off the back of his neck. His posture loosened, he met her gaze more easily, and he listened with enthusiasm to her stories of the exploits he had missed in the past few weeks. He even offered to come along on tomorrow’s job, promising to show her this new sword technique he had been practicing.

And then there was the matter of the scarf.

It took her a good chapter of the book before she even noticed it: a red kerchief folded neatly and tied around his right wrist. Unusual, she thought, for Fenris to accessorize. It was another half a chapter of curious glances before she registered what it was, her eyes catching the telltale stitching as he reached to turn a page. Stitching _she_ had done, bored on a lazy afternoon with her mother: an uneven feather-stitched edge, and a small, sorry attempt at the Hawke crest at the corner. One of several such kerchiefs she kept upstairs, and here it was tied carefully around Fenris' slender wrist.

It struck her that he must have been wearing it when they met in the street, and that had been a fortuitous accident. It followed, then, that he had been wearing it generally today - perhaps more than just today, by simple probability. And further, her thoughts rattled loudly, it seemed a sound assumption that one probably didn’t pilfer and wear embroidered tokens of people they cared nothing for. Hawke swallowed heavily.

“Fenris,” she began, unable to subdue the wheedling lilt that was creeping in, bubbling up with her suspicious joy. “Pardon the accusation, but did you liberate this from my dressing table?” Before she thought better of it, she grazed his arm with her fingertips, just beside the cloth. His hand stiffened on the book at the touch, but he did not move away. She traveled up his wrist across the red band, and settled her hand on top of his, savouring the warmth of his skin, and the flutter in her heart as his thumb came up to brush across her fingers.

She turned her gaze up to his face and found he was already looking at her, a startling tenderness in his eyes.

“I hope you will forgive the theft.” The bare edge of a wry smile, before the solemn intensity returned. “It was a hasty impulse when I was here last.”

His hand was warm and firm and real under hers, the pad of his thumb making small circles against her skin. Hawke tried very hard not to think about what they were up to when he was here last.

Fenris sought his next words in thoughtful silence, dropping his eyes to where she held him - fingers on his hand, cloth on his wrist. After a moment, he offered simply, “Wearing it has been a comfort.”

Hawke gave his hand a little squeeze before letting him go, turning her attention to what remained of the fig bread. She had an immediate need to occupy her hands and mouth, in an effort to subdue the many irresponsible impulses currently warming her, none of which would be respectful of his desire for space. She tore off a tattered piece of bread and crammed it in her mouth unceremoniously, and nodded at the crumbling remains on the plate.

“Oh, I think one stolen scarf is a fair exchange for half of this delicious thing," she mumbled around the mouthful.

A raised eyebrow. “Hawke, you have eaten far more than half.”

“Well, I have more of those scarves upstairs if I need to settle up.”

Fenris chuckled, quiet and dark. “The one will suffice.”

So no, Hawke concluded after all, she had not been imagining things. The offer to tag along on tomorrow's trip, as though they hadn't missed a beat. The lingering press of his shoulder against hers as he leaned across the book to retrieve a stray fig. The low heat in his voice when he said, at a lull between chapters, "It has been good to see you again." Each little beat of a comfortable evening, stitched and wrapped with new purpose, a claret promise folded against his pulse.

Hawke knew: if eating bread and reading was all they ever had again - just looking at him here in the firelit library, Maker's breath, it would be more than enough.

Fenris stood (gently licking sugar from his fingertips, brushing them on his thighs, pressing his palms on the table to push himself up, curling out of his chair into a sleepy stretch) and crossed to the bookshelf to peruse the titles for something new.

She watched every movement, arrested.

He pressed a hand to the back of his neck (brushing through his hair, which was growing long, tapping one finger on his spine as he browsed, the ridge of his shoulder-blade sharp under dark linen), and he hummed thoughtfully as he took his time picking something out.

Hawke had already made her choice.


	5. Briefly - Morrigan & Mahariel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morrigan steals a miracle.
> 
> Background Alistair / Mahariel.
> 
> Tags: Found Family
> 
> NOTE: This chapter concerns the Dark Ritual (with a romanced Alistair); I have tried a gentle take on it, and nothing is explicit, but I wanted to give a heads up in case the concept causes discomfort.

# Briefly

Morrigan & Mahariel

> "It is only on mornings like this, the birds just out living life, that out of view, privately, briefly, you can lose your head. All alone, unwitnessed, there is no one else to believe it, the way paths cross in the sun. Love is this sudden crash in your path, quick and to the point, and nearly always it leaves someone slain on the green."

* * *

Morrigan would not raise her child on fairy stories. They were foolish things, laden with sentiment and moralizing; right and wrong were not objective truths to be lectured in tales of heroes overcoming villains. The world was much more complicated - marvelously so.

Besides, Morrigan had had about enough of fairy stories in her lifetime, having been born into one.

The Witch of the Wilds. A noise in the dark, a shape in the trees - a parable to scare good children from venturing into the wood. But she was raised in the wood - what keeps a little witch girl in line?

The truth. It was more frightening and powerful than any child's tale - no matter how they exaggerated her mother. The wicked ways of men, the gnashing teeth of beasts. Unknown artifacts, curses yet undiscovered. Grasping how little about the horrors of the world she truly understood: that was fear enough to grow on.

Morrigan had not felt fear like that in a long time, perhaps not since childhood. And this particular flavour was entirely new to her - this vicarious anxiety, the fear on behalf of another.

Mahariel, her friend, would kill the Archdemon and die.

It had been a strange road to the respect she now harboured for the woman. It had found begrudging purchase there over time. She had been a challenge at first: sentimental, extroverted, an idealist - but there was an undeniable kinship, a spark of recognition. They were two fierce young women, raised in the woods, with a lot to teach each other.

Mahariel came often to ask, curiously, of Morrigan's life: her magic, her abilities, her desires. It was unfamiliar to be approached warmly, and hard not to appreciate the chance to speak on things as equals. The woman was impertinently gregarious, constantly getting involved in the affairs of others - but seeking the best for people, and in people. It was an annoyance, and then an amusement, and became a fondness before Morrigan could stop it happening. Mahariel had an alien pleasantness, despite the similarities in their isolated upbringings. Perhaps it came from being raised among her clan: a protective spirit that could only be born from the camaraderie of family.

Morrigan felt that must be true, because now that she had found a kinship - a sister - she desired the best for someone. She needed her to live.

Alistair had seemed a solution, at first. He could certainly make the sacrifice. Morrigan did not understand what Mahariel saw in the man, but did understand how they fit together. He was also a noble fool - and that foolishness would be a boon, if he would lay his life down to protect the woman he loved. Problem solved; Morrigan could avert the loss she feared.

But picturing that world was equally agonizing, loathe as she was to admit it. In a world where Alistair died, Mahariel would be ruined. He was an imbecile, but her friend loved him terribly. Much as Morrigan desired her alive, she could not bring herself to desire a world where she lived in despair.

There was, of course, a third option.

Her mother had given her the old magic, intending to capture the Archdemon's soul herself. But with Flemeth dead and gone - with Morrigan freed from those bonds by Mahariel's defense of her, benevolent bloodshed - there had seemed little reason to pursue it. Now, however, perhaps she could have her own reasons; perhaps there was a way to steal a happy ending.

What is right, and what is wrong, truly? Is something dark magic, or is it a salvation? Is it a perverse ritual, or a pact between people who care fiercely for one another? A surreptitious bargain offered in the dead of night? Or a last-ditch plea: don't die for him. Don't let him die for you. Live, for love - for his and yours and mine.

Once upon a time, a wicked witch lived in a dark wood. Her life was certainly not as simple as a fairy story, but for a glimmer of a moment, Morrigan would relish being on the side of good. She found and learned and made a family. They saved the kingdom. They killed a dragon. True love endured.

They might not all live happily ever after. But at least, for now, they would all live.


End file.
